


Kind of Like the Girl I Used to be

by EmZ711



Series: The Widow Chronicle [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Laura Barton, Budapest, Clint and Laura Barton's Family, Clintasha Shenanigans, F/F, F/M, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Origin Story, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Natasha Romanov, Sassy Laura Barton, Strike Team Delta, This is a much happier story than the first part of the series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2020-10-11 08:34:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20543204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmZ711/pseuds/EmZ711
Summary: “And what can I call you? Black Widow seems a little intense for small talk.”The corner of her mouth quirks up, though the moment is brief as she retreats into her head again. She has an opportunity she never thought she’d be privileged enough to find. There’s no one here in this moment trying to stop her from becoming who she wants herself to be. For the first time in her life, someone is standing in front of her and giving back the agency that everyone else has taken away.Now she has a chance to breathe new life into herself.“Natasha,” she says, looking up to him again.“You can call me Natasha.”





	1. Prologue

* * *

_“Are you kidding me?”_

_“_What_? What could possibly be wrong with this one, Barton?”_

_“You’re sending me to Russia to assassinate a _teenager_? That’s a lot, Coulson, even for you,” he says, crossing his arms._

_“What do you mean “even for me”?” he blanches, then rights himself._

_“She’s taking out our operatives left and right. They’re calling her the Black Widow. Can’t see her coming, and when you do it’s too late. You should be flattered, Barton. You’re the best equipped agent to take her out.” _

_Clint snorts, “Really flattering that I’m best equipped to take out a teenaged girl. Thanks for the stamp of approval.”_

_“Oh for God’s sake, Hawkeye, just get ready to go. She’s gonna pull a fast one of you before you even nock an arrow,” Phil huffs as he’s leaving the office._

_“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” he mutters._

_Standing over the desk, Clint examines the pictures with a huff of his own._

_“You really wanna pull a fast one on me, Black Widow?”_

* * *

**Late June, 2004**

**St. Petersburg, Russia**

* * *

The streets are dark, unpleasantly so. 

It’s raining, and it has been all night, the icy drops landing on Natalia’s skin a pointed reminder that it’s best to get inside now before the storm moves in. She hasn’t listened to that instinct, or can’t in any case. 

Not if she wants to live to see another day. The more she thinks about it, the less she wants to.

Or perhaps it’s that she doesn’t want to live to see another day in Russia, another day tortured by her handlers, another day pushed over the edge of a cliff where the only place to fall to is a sea of red. 

Her boots beat on the ground as she runs, wisps of shoulder length red sticking wet to her face as she gains in pursuit on her target. 

He’s fast. 

Natalia is faster. 

He takes a sharp left into an alley and she’s following after him, hand on her pistol and pulling it out as she rounds the corner. He’s slipped half-way down the alley and as she comes up on him he cowers from her, cradling a bloody arm with its opposite. 

“Please! Please, you don’t need to do this! I’ll hand everything over!” 

He’s pleading as Natalia comes to a halt in front of him, gun aimed at the center of his forehead. 

“I have a family at home, please! My wife! She just had another baby!” 

She almost doesn’t do it. Almost waits so long she can’t bring herself to pull the trigger as the familiar nightmare of a dark haired baby flashes in her mind. 

Her teeth are clenching, body tense as she listens to him gush over the baby boy waiting for him. 

Still, traitor to the Motherland, he’s going to end up dead. If she doesn’t do it then someone else will. 

She makes it quick, the spat of blood bringing a nausea to her stomach she doesn’t often experience. 

She’s so remarkably selfish. It would be so much less damning to just give herself over to them. She thinks she could gladly endure the torture as long as it ended in death. 

She stumbles back into brick and when that vision comes back, the beautiful green-eyed little girl, she’s sliding down to the wet ground and pressing her palms so hard into her eyes that she feels pain. 

It’s less pain than she deserves for taking a parent away from a child. 

_You were that child once, you monster._

Her fists slam into the stone ground beneath her, bringing blood to the surface of her knuckles that doesn’t break through until she’s done it a few more times.

* * *

Clint Barton is watching her from above, arrow aimed and not quite ready to be released. Saving the man he’d just watched her kill isn’t part of his mission. He’s been following the chase from the rooftops, easier than trying to hide from her on the ground, and easier to kill her if she’s not fighting back. 

As he watches her grind her fists into the ground he’s not so sure that it’s himself he should be worried about her injuring. 

He sends his arrow through the flimsy metal trash bin a few feet to her right and she is on her feet in a second, running the next. He hadn’t been expecting anything different and he’s following her again, bounding across rooftops until he finds the best place to get to the ground again. 

His feet hit the pavement and she’s heading into another alley, though not before he sends an arrow into her left shoulder. 

She’s sitting slumped against a crate and weeping when he gets to the mouth of the alley, and she kicks her pistols to his feet. 

_Damn it, Coulson._

“Just do it. Please just kill me.” 

Her pleading voice is deeper than he was expecting it to be. It’s tired, like a withering tendril of smoke getting blown away as her fists clench. 

Against his better judgement he takes a step closer, not lowering his arrow, but not aiming to shoot either. 

In retrospect, a mistake, because as soon as he’s close enough she’s grabbing onto his bow and yanking the arrow from her shoulder. She strikes the tip over his forearm and as he grunts, the bow comes out of his grip. 

_That’s a first. _

_Really, damn it, Coulson._

Truthfully he’s astounded for a moment by her show of simply pulling an arrow _out of her body _and still fighting on, but it turns into disturbance upon realizing that she’s likely endured so much worse from the Red Room. That program needed ending. 

He doesn’t really have more time to think on it because her assault on him is unrelenting. She kicks like a mule and her hits always land. Lucky for him, his do too, and he doesn’t hold back. He may have given Coulson shit, but he’s not here to underestimate her, not when she fights like she hasn’t just been shot through with an arrow. 

He’s not sure when he gets the upper hand, only knows that he’s got it when the hits on her left start getting tired. 

He gets ahold of her arm and twists it behind her, pushing her forward into brick as she cries out. He can smell the tang of blood, his and hers, around them. Everything is uncomfortably wet from the night and he really is considering demanding a fully funded spa day from Phil when he gets home. 

She grunts and struggles between his body and the wall. 

“Just finish it!” she hisses, “Just take what you want and go!” 

She’s trying to manipulate the other hand, he knows. He’s read the files about her training. Not like he can blame her, though. Grimly he notes that most men probably have taken what they wanted. Tried to go perhaps, only to get taken out in the middle of a filthy, orgasmic stupor. 

He presses her harder into the wall and she hisses again. 

Against his better judgement, he pulls a tranquilizer from his quiver and sticks it into her thigh. She hisses, growls, bringing an arm loose to swing back at him, but then she’s slumping against the wet brick in front of her until he turns her around and lifts her over his shoulder. 

He grabs his bow and decides not to take the roofs back to the safe house. 

* * *

When she comes to, she’s groggy, but she can sense the absence of all of her weapons almost immediately. She isn’t restrained and she’s dressed still, save for where the shoulder of her suit is pulled off. The arrow puncture is patched up. The bed she’s on is hard, though not uncomfortable. What is uncomfortable is the rain damp suit sticking to her skin. 

“I put some clothes on the end of the bed if you want to change. Bathroom is over there.” 

She sits up quick as her gaze comes to the man in the corner chair. He has one of her pistols aimed at her. Her eyes dart to where her weapons lay on the dresser. 

“I wouldn’t.” 

She processes that he’s speaking English. Natalia looks back at the man again. The room has a soft glow from the lamp on the bedside table, and in it she can better see the dirty blond of his hair and the raven colored glint of his suit. She can also see the wounds she gave him. She must not have been out long for him to not have had time to clean up. 

“Who are you?” 

Her voice cracks, heavy with her accent as she doesn’t exert to effort to anglicize it, and her fingers dig into the duvet she’s on top of.

“You want to give me your word that you won’t go ape shit on me before we start having a conversation?” he asks. 

“Does my word really mean anything to you? Why wouldn’t you tie me up?” 

She watches his left brow raise. 

“You want me to insult you? Because you and I both know you would get yourself out of any restraint I put you in, probably without me even noticing, so cut the shit and give me your word. My handlers are going to be here in about ten minutes, and they are _really _not happy that I deviated from their mission, but if you can prove to me that I didn’t make a mistake in not sending my first arrow through your heart, we’d both end up a lot better when they get here.” 

She’s staring at him, jaw tight as she runs over her options in her head. 

She could easily evade whatever shot he took at her in her path to the dresser. It would be relatively easy to take him out before he had a chance to get his hands back on his weapon of choice. She could leave him here to bleed out and be completely out of sight before his handlers even arrived, but then… 

This is what she’s been waiting for, isn’t it? A way out. Maybe they’ll take her out of Russia, maybe they’ll take out her handlers who’ve continued to make her life a living hell since the day she killed Ivan Petrovich. 

To think she was stupid enough to imagine them treating her any better after that… Madame B hadn’t misled her. She was property and she would do as she was told or she would be disposed of. 

“You were sent to kill me. Why didn’t you?”

He shrugs, shaking his head.

“Something tells me you’re not exactly in this because you want to be. That’s a shitty way to live your life.” 

“I can’t remember ever living my life.” 

It’s almost the truth. James feels so far gone now that Natalia sometimes can’t convince herself that he was ever real. 

“SHIELD can give you that opportunity,” he says like he’s not sure whether or not he’ll get fired for it. It makes her smirk. 

“Wouldn’t that be rich?” 

“What are you handlers here giving you that we couldn’t?” 

His words are pointed and she finds herself unable to answer. For once, she allows her shoulders to drop along with the wall she keeps up around herself. She’s so tired of letting herself be controlled, manipulated, tortured. 

The past year and a half has been hell. They keep sending her on missions that require nothing more than swaying her hips and slipping into beds with a knife, and she knows she’s meant for more than that, knows her abilities extend so much farther. Her assassinations would be so much more goddamn interesting if it wasn’t for how much her handlers liked seeing her in skin tight cocktail dresses.

The past fifteen years have given her no good reason to be loyal to this country aside from fearing for her life. She’d been thinking about that a lot more often lately. James had been the one to help her realize she was more than capable of outlasting that fear and she finally has the opportunity to fulfill that realization. He would be proud of her for getting out, or at the very least for trying. 

This asinine plan she’s concocting has every possibility to fail, but at least if she’s killed it’ll be due to a decision of her own. 

When she looks up at him again it’s with a fierce determination in her eyes. 

“Okay.” 

As though it was the opposite of what he’d been expecting, his brow shoots up and his mouth falls open. 

“That was quick.” 

She shrugs her shoulders and he notices that she doesn’t even wince from her injury. He watches her for a moment before nodding, one time and brisk, and he jerks his head towards her stockpiled weapons. 

“I’ll keep those if you don’t mind. My handlers will want you cuffed when they arrive. If you want to change you’d better do it now.” 

Natalia shakes her head. She isn’t changing into sweatpants for the likes of anyone, definitely not Americans who aren’t going to take her seriously in the first place. 

She swallows and eyes him. 

“Who are you?” 

“You can call me Clint.” 

Her head is slow as she nods and he sits forward on the chair. 

“And what can I call you? Black Widow seems a little intense for small talk.” 

The corner of her mouth quirks up, though the moment is brief as she retreats into her head again. She has an opportunity she never thought she’d be privileged enough to find. There’s no one here in this moment trying to stop her from becoming who she wants herself to be. For the first time in her life, someone is standing in front of her and giving back the agency that everyone else has taken away. 

Now she has a chance to breathe new life into herself. 

“Natasha,” she says, looking up to him again. 

“You can call me Natasha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha is here!
> 
> This has been your official introduction to Part Two of the Widow Chronicles! 
> 
> I really hope you all enjoyed this first little prologue! I feel a little guilty for taking so long, but my summer ended up being very weird and time consuming, and now I'm back to University for my very last year of undergrad! 
> 
> I can't say how often I will be posting chapters for this, as I like to at least have one chapter of a cushion before I put another one out. This installment will also be longer than the first was. I have the first four chapters written, but I think right now I have thirteen chapters slated, including this prologue. Hopefully I won't get too caught up in the craze of the school year!
> 
> Please let me know what you think and what you're excited for! I'd love to hear from you!
> 
> \- Em


	2. I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint seems to enjoy her company well enough, and it doesn’t take long before they have a banter going that makes it seem as though they’ve known each other for years. It started right away if she’s being honest, after she’d discovered that Fury hadn’t been making a joke about his bows and arrows having their own room. She can’t remember ever laughing so hard, uncharacteristically so. Even as he’d muttered and grumbled and started clearing out the spare room she hadn’t been able to stop her chortling. He’d cracked a smile eventually and she’d realized that maybe this would be okay, as long as he stayed around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, friends! 
> 
> Chapter one is here and I've realized that it's probably best to read the first part of this series if you've not already. It's not absolutely necessary, however there are some referrals every so often that may seem a little out of place without the context of the first part of the series. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

* * *

“Barton, is there a reason you’re on this trajectory of diverging from all of my orders? Or is it just because you like annoying me?” 

“Listen, last time was an accident.” 

Natalia is-…

Natasha now.

She’s watching from the seat she’s strapped into as the archer’s handler reprimands him, though it’s surprising to her, the lack of violence that comes along with it. She's watching in mute curiosity.

There are two agents guarding her and she can sense their discomfort as easily as she could escape these bindings if she wanted to. It’s comforting in a way, to know that they’re cautious of her. It's nice to feel like she has an upper hand despite the cuffs around her wrists, but then that isn’t what she’s here to do and she isn’t going to ruin whatever this chance is that she’s been given. 

She realizes she’d stopped listening – she’s still weary from the tranquilizer she’d taken barely an hour ago – when she feels Clint’s gaze fall on her again. He must have been saying something about her, though she’s not sure what. Something about “giving her a chance” and how it “could end up being a good thing”, both of which could be true she thinks. 

She also understands his handler’s caution. 

Not too often a Red Room spy defects to SHIELD with little more than a shrug of the shoulders. 

If Madame could see her now... 

Natasha looks up and meets the archer’s gaze and she thinks she sees tenderness there before he’s looking back at his handler again, explaining that he’s going to take full responsibility for her, he’ll train with her and supervise her. See if they can’t get her ready for field work. He insists that she’ll acclimate just fine, that she doesn’t have a reason to stay loyal to the KGB. 

“And just what do you think Fury’s going to say when you stroll into debrief with the Black Widow?” His handler, Coulson she thinks, is crossing his arms in front of himself. 

She shifts, putting one leg over the other, which ends up being a mistake because she’s suddenly startled several of the agents on board and now she has five guns trained on her, any words silenced with the cocking of the pistols 

Clint is putting himself in front of her then, holding up his hands and deescalating before it ends badly for everyone. She can still see Coulson ten paces away, shaking his head as though this is truly the biggest mistake he’s ever had an agent make.

It fills her with a vigor to prove him so wrong that he won’t ever think of underestimating her again. 

“Okay, guys... Let’s not get too trigger happy here. Why doesn’t everybody just take a deep breath and let the girl adjust? I can’t see any of you sitting still on a place ride across the Atlantic.” 

Well, she _could_ sit still if she wanted to, but she doesn’t think this is an atmosphere where friendly competition is appropriate. 

Natasha notices that the agent to her right is the last to lower his weapon, and the disdain on his face doesn’t fade into disinterest like the others’ do. She captures his face in her mind to keep an eye out for him, though she’s sure she could take him out in ten seconds flat if he ended up trying anything. His grip on his gun isn’t hard enough and his stance would have sent him off balance if he’d tried to take a shot. Chances are he wouldn’t have even hit her. Her brow cocks at him as he lowers his weapon and tucks it away. 

“Wouldn’t she be better off transported in a steel box, Barton?” he says, jerking his chin and not looking away from her. 

“Depends on how mad you want her to be when we land, Kensley.” 

“_She _is right here and unless you want her to exercise her ability to get out of these restraints, I’d suggest you stop referring to her as though she can’t hear you, as much as she wishes she couldn’t,” she throws at the both of them. 

Clint at least has the decency to look a little ashamed, and she thinks maybe she hears Agent Coulson snort. She leans her head back against the seat and closes her eyes. She’s exhausted, though she remains hyper aware of the people around her. She doesn’t trust any of them even _close_ to as far as she could throw them. She has no reason to. Clint may have gotten her out of Russia, but he hasn’t proven anything to her yet, not really. Grateful as she is to him, it’s entirely possible that he has another angle here, and truthfully, given her track record with being used for other people's personal gain, it’s more logical for her to believe that he does. 

Agent Kensley doesn’t take his eyes off her until they land, and she hopes he leaves before they unstrap her from the seat, because if there’s one thing that makes her uncomfortable it’s visibility. The vulnerability of having his eyes on her for hours riles her to the point where she’ll have to restrain herself from injuring him out of sheer force of habit if he stays anywhere near her. 

Barton is there when they unstrap her, standing between her and Kensley. She’s cooperative, though they don’t seem to be expecting her to be. Their grips on her arms are like vices and she can’t resist playing with them. 

“Hey, I bruise easily, loosen it up, _da_?”

The woman on her left narrows her gaze and the young man on her right looks like a ghost as he looks at Clint, eyes wide with fright, only to see him trying to hold in laughter. Coulson huffs past him and mutters something to the archer about being inappropriate, upon which Clint's gaze meets hers and her lips turn up at the corner. 

She likes him. 

They continue to walk her along, Barton following behind them. 

Natasha takes in the space around her, cataloguing it for later. She wonders briefly what city they’ve brought her to until she hears someone make a passing comment about how the Potomac looks at four AM. 

SHIELD Headquarters in DC then. It’s stories tall and they lead her deep into it, until the windows start disappearing and she’s positive they’re forty feet into the depths of the building. 

She’s put in an interrogation chamber and the young man who’s grip really _had_ loosened is quick to go, leaving her there to wait with Agent Barton. He leans back into the table she’s been seated at and crosses his arms. 

“You got to the hard part. Once you get through Fury it’s smooth sailing from there,” he says. 

“You sound more like you’re trying to convince yourself of that, Agent.” 

He meets her smirk with a half grin of his own and shrugs, “It is what it is. I just hope you prove that I made the right call on you.” 

“Hm.” 

There’s a click at the door and it slides open, Coulson entering with his annoyingly perfect hair behind a tall man with an eyepatch. Interesting. The way he walks into the room demands attention and he takes a seat in the chair on the other side of the table before Barton even has a chance to straighten up. 

“Hawkeye. Want to explain who is sitting in front of me and why?” 

“Ahh… Yeah, sir. This would be-“ 

“Natalia Romanova, sir. Natasha. Though I hear they’ve been calling me the Black Widow. And I can speak for myself. I’m perfectly fluent in English.” 

The silence that follows scares even the crickets away. She arches one brow as he holds a staring contest with her, and true to nature she doesn’t let her gaze falter until he does, leaning forward and rubbing his hand over his mouth as he studies her. 

“So, Natalia Romanova-“ 

Her nose scrunches with the way his accent butchers her name. She’d have to Americanize her last one too it would seem, but that was fine. He continues. 

“Born in the Red Room?” 

“Not exactly.” 

“Care to elaborate?” 

“Not really. Unless being orphaned is pertinent to whatever work I might be able to do for you here at SHIELD, I’d be more interested in explaining to you my skill set, and I'd think you would be more interested in that as well.” 

“What I’m interested in is figuring out whether or not this is a conflict of interest that this organization can afford. Because I have the list of our agents that you’ve taken out memorized and I can assure you, I won’t be forgetting it any time soon.” 

“Well then, with all due respect, sir, I think it might be more helpful to ask me about my time following the Red Room. The academy made me what I am, but I don’t work for them. You’re just being nosy.” 

Clint snorts and the glare Fury sends his way brings his hand to hide his mouth and prevent any further slip ups. 

“Okay, Miss Romanova. What, pray tell, do you have to tell me about your time working with the SVR?”

**~**

Their conversation seems to last for hours. Agent Coulson had been called away at some point and they’re still talking when he returns. Agent Barton looks like he wants to use the links between her cuffs to garrote himself. Fury has barely let him get a word in edgewise. 

“So with all the work you’ve done for your country throughout your life, Black Widow, you’re telling me you want to just switch sides? SHIELD is different from what you’re used to. Humans aren’t just expendable no questions asked. Four months ago, you set fire to a fully functional Children’s Ward just to get one man. Do you wanna explain that to me?” 

Her hard gaze falters and for the first time since he’d come in she averts her gaze to her lap after a moment. Clint is watching her as she shakes her head, nails digging into her palms. 

“I didn’t…” 

She wants to bury herself for the tears forming in her eyes in front of them. She blinks them away. 

“I was made to serve them. I wasn’t… You only have two options in the Red Room, with the KGB. You do as you are told or you die.” 

Natasha looks up at him again. 

“I am not a spectacle. I will not share everything that I’ve experienced in the fifteen years that I have served Russia because you don’t need to know. All you need to know is that I came with Agent Barton because he gave me the chance to-” 

She stops short and shakes her head. Fury is listening, his gaze flat, but she can still see his mind racing.

“You can take my word or leave it, but I refuse to return to Russia and to who they’ve been forcing me to be. I don’t owe a single thing to any of them. I’m just looking for a chance to be better than what they made me.” 

The silence is palpable as Fury studies her. She can practically see the gears turning in his head, and beside her, Barton is shifting. She imagines it’s uncharacteristic of him to be so fidgety. Snipers didn’t tend to be in her experience. 

The director stands up then, motioning for Coulson to undo her handcuffs as he addresses Clint. 

“She’s on a trial run, Barton, walking on a _very _thin line. She answers to you and you answer to Coulson and I, understood? You don’t let her out of your sight.” 

The archer is quick to grin.

“Of course, sir. You won’t regret it.” 

“Yeah, I’d better not. We’ll get a new bed up to your on-site quarters. Your bow doesn’t need the entire second room in your apartment.” 

Clint’s jaw drops, “How did you-“ 

“Oh give me a break,” Coulson mutters. 

The Director looks back at Natasha. 

“You’re skating on thin ice, Romanova. Impress me and we’ll see what we can do.” 

She watches him go with surprise sparking in her eyes, rubbing her wrists as Coulson follows him out. Barton is quiet for a moment, but he leans back against the table and grins. 

“Well congratulations. You got through the hard part.” 

“_Da_? I guess the rest of my life should be a breeze, shouldn’t it?” 

He smirks. 

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” 

He jerks his head and she rises from her seat. 

“Let’s go. You have to be beat. I’ll let you sleep awhile and I can show you around when you wake up.”

* * *

In the months that follow, she begins adjusting well enough. 

It’s jarring, still, despite her ability to adapt. The Triskelion is large and Clint’s apartment is a very comfortable size, though she can’t help but feel a little trapped now that she’s gone from field work back to living in a facility. Where she is now in no way compares to what the Red Room had been, but it’s the idea of it that makes her stir-crazy. 

What really drives her nuts is the _people_. The sheer, astounding amount of agents that seem to be _scared_ of her when she has yet to do anything here. Reputation precedes and all that, she guesses, but it’s incredibly juvenile to her, the fact that she can clear out a hallway just by walking down it, and she can tell Clint feels bad, which just makes it even worse. 

She does her best to ignore it, gives them the benefit of the doubt because truthfully she can’t blame them. She wouldn’t trust her either. Not yet anyway. And she’s not one to cry about not making friends. 

Clint seems to enjoy her company well enough, and it doesn’t take long before they have a banter going that makes it seem as though they’ve known each other for years. It started right away if she’s being honest, after she’d discovered that Fury hadn’t been making a joke about his bows and arrows having their own room. She can’t remember ever laughing so hard, uncharacteristically so. Even as he’d muttered and grumbled and started clearing out the spare room she hadn’t been able to stop her chortling. He’d cracked a smile eventually and she’d realized that maybe this would be okay, as long as he stayed around. 

The problem doesn’t arise until November. 

Following three months of good behavior, Coulson – Phil, as she enjoys calling him, because it makes him huffy, and because Clint gets her into the habit – takes her off of hawk alert. 

By the end of September she’s allowed to do things separately from Clint, which is nice, because as much as Natasha’s grown to enjoy his company, she’s so accustomed to having alone time that it’s a lot of work to spend every hour of the day with people watching her and to not lash out in aggravation. 

It doesn’t mean they’re apart from each other much more than they were before, more so that she has the freedom to walk to the gym alone when Clint decides he wants an extra hour of sleep, or when Natasha decides that she’s ready for lunch and that it’s “not _my _fault you didn’t get out of bed until noon.” 

However, it does mean that Clint is returned to semi-active duty, more so meaning that when a mission arises in mid-October, they send him out. It’s not a long mission, and he stays stateside. Homegrown terrorist cell in the Midwest is as much as he can say to her when he returns four days later. 

In those four days she notices that people are much less inclined to contain their hostility towards her when Clint isn’t around, and that makes her angry. Angry enough that he catches onto it as soon as he returns and sits down across from her to eat at the kitchen island. 

It’s in the way that she almost stabs her fork through the cardboard takeout box. 

“Still haven’t gotten the hold of chopsticks?” he raises his eyebrows. 

The glare she offers in response almost sends him off the stool. 

“What’s wrong?” he shifts gears and presses his middle fingers hard into the space between his eyes as she smacks her fork onto the concrete of the counter. 

“What’s wrong is that I can’t seem to function in this place without you around, which really shouldn’t be the case, should it? I shouldn’t have to wait however many days you’re on an op to practice hand to hand with someone because you’re the only one who isn’t a pretentious baby. These people are so _annoying_,” she sends the toe of her boot to take out her frustration on the black painted wood of the cupboard. 

He looks like he doesn’t really know how to respond, probably because she’s fallen into her mother tongue and he only understands the gist of what she’d said. He sighs and leans forward, rubbing his forehead. 

“I’m sorry, Tash. I really wish that was something I could change.”

She starts at the nickname. He's never called her that before. She likes it.

She take a moment before releasing a quiet sigh, “It’s fine. Just needed to… I don’t mean to throw it on you. It’s not your fault.” 

“Yeah, I know it’s not. But I get it.” 

She hums and picks up her fork again, “Also fuck off, I’m Russian. I’ve never used chopsticks in my life.” 

He laughs at her and shakes his head, “I don’t think being Russian and not using chopsticks are mutually exclusive.” 

“Yeah, well, the Red Room wasn’t ordering us Chinese takeout on Friday nights, so back off before I find a more creative way to use them, probably on you.” 

But she’s smirking, and he’s grinning at her and then everything is fine until the day before her birthday.

* * *

Natasha’s grown to hate her birthday.

All of the worst things happen near her birthday and this year is evidently no exception. 

Clint just disappears. 

Nobody – _nobody –_ will answer her questions. Not Phil, not other agents, especially not Fury. He’s just gone. A day turns into two, turns into a week, turns into a month, turns into two until she’s positive he really must have gotten sick of her and just quit his job. She tries to write it off. The world most certainly does _not _revolve around her and she’s not under an illusion that it does. He’s probably doing something important. 

But god damn it she wants to know.

He's the one person here that she can stand, that she feels like she can call her friend. The only person who doesn't make her feel like slamming her head into a brick wall.

She’s been walking around in a limbo, keeping up with training, alone. Eating, alone. Teaching herself about computer programming, alone. And though she’s used to being alone and prefers it most of the time, now it makes her realize that she’s grown close enough to someone again to miss them, and that dredges up some intensely painful memories that she wishes she could ignore.

**~**

By the time January rolls around she’s grown weary. As she hits the punching bag in front of her until her wrapped knuckles are bleeding, she wonders, really wonders, what the point of all this is. Wonders how hard it would be to get out of the Triskelion and off of SHIELD’s radar. Maybe she could find someone to do freelance work for. Maybe she’ll go to Australia. Not a lot of covert SHIELD presence there she doesn’t think. She’d have to be careful though. After the work she’s done for the KGB, Fury’s not letting her just fade into the background. They’d be after her in a heartbeat. 

Something like hope makes her stick it out for a little longer. Something like longing. She hasn’t felt that since James. But he’d always told her to hold out hope, to remain relentless in her achievements. It’s the only coherent memory of him she’s retained through the Red Room’s brain stirring mind control. She wants to honor it.

**~**

Some day in early February, she walks into the apartment and Clint is standing up from the kitchen counter. He’s not smiling but he does seem to have a glow about him, though she doesn’t know why. 

Natasha almost injures herself, biting her cheeks hard enough to keep the anger that overwhelms her at bay. 

He’s got a little map clutched in his hand and she realizes from the red marks on it that it’s hers, the start of her plan to get the fuck out of here because she’s over sitting around, done being the Russian stereotype that nobody trusts enough to give the time of day. 

She crosses her arms and stares from the map to him again before taking off towards her bedroom.

“Natasha, what the hell is this? SHIELD is trying to help you.”

She whirls around and explodes. 

“Are you _kidding _me? You left me here to sit for _two months_ and you have the audacity to question my escape plan as if _I’ve _done something wrong? I don’t know if it slipped your mind but I’m not just free to do whatever I please! Just because I’m not here against my will doesn’t mean that I’m allowed to do whatever I want and you know that! And the only person who ever offers me the time of day just disappears and then what?

"Do you want to maybe explain to me what I’m doing here, Clint? Because it seems to me like I’m doing a whole _fucking_ lot of nothing. Eight months is a lot of time to sit around and I’m sick of waiting for someone to tell me why, because I'm trying to do everything right and everyone is still afraid of coming near me! Don’t you dare come in here and act like it’s _me _who’s doing something wrong because so far SHIELD hasn’t done anything for me! _You _gave me the opportunity to defect. Your agency wanted me dead, and it doesn't seem like that opinion has changed!” 

The glow she’d sensed when she came in fades as his fist clenches harder around the paper. He stares her dead in the eyes as he rips it apart, and she’s positive it’s on purpose, the asshole, because Clint could absolutely be that petty when he really wanted to, she's seen him do stupid shit like that to Phil a hundred times in the months following her arrival. She watches the pieces flutter to the floor, electricity sparking in her veins as the room stills for a moment.

She jumps at him with a frustrated growl and has no qualms with giving up all of her anger.

He meets her hit for hit and neither of them lets up. Not in their nature, and the spar doesn’t end until they sit panting on the floor, hip to hip, leaning back against the refrigerator. Neither of them are injured, that's not what it was about, and damn if they don't both feel better from it. 

“You were pulling your punches,” she mutters, brushing her hair from her face. 

“Yeah well, forgive me. This wasn’t quite the welcome I was expecting.” 

“Really? _Ty idiot_.” 

“I didn’t think they wouldn’t tell you _anything_. Shit, Natasha, I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot going on. A lot that I can’t talk about. SHIELD hasn’t been my top priority,” he says through a huff.

She sighs and her head lazes against the fridge.

“I don’t want you to think you’re my babysitter, Clint," she shakes her head, "I really don’t, and I don’t see you that way. I’m capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need entertainment. I can look over my own shoulder. But everyone keeping me in the dark isn’t making it easy to believe that this was worth it. That this isn't just a convenient way to lock me up. If they want me in prison, tell them to put me there.” 

“God, Tash, that's not... I know what it seems like. And I really am sorry. It wasn’t my intention to keep you in the dark. This isn't to keep you locked away. I promise, I'm going to try harder to make this worth your while. For now, can you forgive me?" 

He turns to her and gives her half of a lopsided grin, which she has to roll her eyes at. Even when he aggravates her he can’t fail to bring a smile to her face. She huffs and shakes her head again. 

“Nothing to forgive. I just don’t know if I’m worth all the trouble,” she manages to take a deep breath and closes her eyes. 

When he slips his hand into hers, she opens them again and meets his gaze. 

“I think you are. You should too. Stop wallowing. You’re the strongest agent here, but you’re not always going to be a threat. People are intimidated by you. They’ll get over it, especially once you start getting on track for field work.” 

She searches somewhere for a lie and doesn’t come up with one, but she also knows how that’s worked out for her in the past. 

“And I’m never going to force you to talk about the Red Room, Tash. But it might help to stop internalizing how you grew up. I’ve seen the reports before. They do a lot of fucked up shit. You’re not at fault for that. I won’t pressure it out of you but I will always listen. If you want me to.” 

He offers her a smile, sincere this time, and full of the unspoken promise that they’re going to be together for a good, long time. In a refreshing bout of lightness, she finds herself thinking that she’s glad life led her here. Fortunate. It’s a good feeling. She smiles back at him. 

“I’m sorry for beating you up.” 

He furrows his brow and turns to her. 

“You’re talking like I didn’t return the favor.” 

She laughs and raises her hands, “You said it, not me.” 

He snores and rolls his eyes, “Okay, got it, Russia. You’re cold.” 

Her jaw drops and she really almost hits him again as she stands up. 

“After _such heartfelt_ conversation, I can’t believe I’m going to have to kill you now on account of you making a Cold War joke to me, Clint. It’s been nice knowing you.” 

He’s heaving so hard with laughter she thinks she might need to take him to medical, but she decides that for _that_ he doesn’t even deserve her help, and really, she thinks, things could be worse, couldn’t they? She doesn’t try to hide her grin or the shake of her head as she stalks off to steal the shower. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and wishes going forth!
> 
> \- Em


	3. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe staying is the right choice. She’s always been stronger than the bullshit, and as a general rule of thumb, she doesn’t need a reminder of that. Natasha has always been good at taking one step back and three steps forward, and SHIELD be damned if she lets anything or anyone change that.

* * *

In retrospect, Natasha sees how maybe making Agent Kensley cry in the hallway in front of his colleagues may not have been the smartest way to handle his idiotic jibing.

Fury doesn’t think so in any case. 

On the other hand, he really should have been expecting it. He’s young (she’s young, but she’s also different), and perhaps he hasn’t grown out of the phase of trying to prove his strength by deflecting onto others, but, perhaps (definitely) because of her past, it’s really not an excuse that she’s keen on accepting. Natasha’s not one to stand by and be talked about like she’s still a teenager, and certainly not one to bow her head in the face of an asshole who can’t stop talking about her like she’s not standing five feet away. 

She supposes it started with his comment about her accent, which has been fading the longer she’s been around Americans, though she’s not really making an effort to sway it that way at present. 

He's already skating on thin ice with his "_can__ barely even listen to her speak" _ and _"_c_an barely understand what she’s saying"_ – which is not true, she’s perfectly fluent in English and has been for over ten years, and on top of that, her learned accents are objectively flawless.

But then that’s not the point.

It’s what he says _after_ that that makes her turn around and punch him in the back of the head. 

_"Only help she’ll ever be with her mouth is turning on her marks."_

Before she can stop herself (not that she wants to), her fist slams into his head and she swears she can almost hear his brains rattle over the gasps of surprise from passing agents. His cry gives her a jolt of satisfaction but it doesn’t stop her from kicking him into the thick glass window. He bounces off it with a resounding smack and she’s satisfied when he turns and his nose is broken. 

Because it’s Kensley and because his ego is the size of the entire continent of North America, he comes at her, though with a technique that she equates in level to when she was fourteen. It almost makes her laugh, but she decides _maybe not_ while they’re surrounded by agents who are, apparently, too stunned to do a thing. 

It’s just as easy to take him down as she’d imagined it would be, and his face is bloodied and bruised as she sits on top of him. 

“Keep my name out of your filthy mouth, you pathetic little man,” she snarls. 

Her accent thickens _just _to ice the cake for him, but her fun ends when she feels the muzzle of a gun press hard into the back of her head. 

“Stand. Down. Romanoff.” 

And she does, really does for a moment because Fury’s voice leaves no room for argument as he stands beside the agent pointing a gun at her. 

But then stupid fucking Kensley is slipping his stupid fucking taser under her shirt and drive stunning her and she flinches and growls and goes at him again, and everything is a whirl as a shot goes off and Clint is hauling her, kicking, off of the agent, holding her arms behind her back as he walks her a few feet away and speaks low in her ear. 

“Tash, fuck, Natasha, walk it off. Walk it off! Take a breath!” 

Kensley is moaning miserably. That shot missed her thanks to Barton, even though it shouldn’t have from such a close range (fucking junior agents), and she finds herself thinking of how hard one of her instructors would have hit her if she’d ever done work like that. Kensley is clutching his leg as Fury snaps into his phone for a med team to come up. Coulson steps up behind them and has the decency to offer an apologetic frown as he fastens cuffs around her wrists and takes her from Clint, who follows as she’s taken to Fury’s office. 

She sits silently in the chair, each of them standing over her shoulders. 

Their director comes in in a huff fifteen minutes later, leaning over his desk and glaring at her. 

“Are you out of your goddamn mind? Attacking one of our agents in the middle of the hallway as if it means nothing to you? I don’t know if it slipped your mind, Romanoff but _we _took _you _in. We gave you this chance and we can take it away. We can send you straight back to Russia and straight back into the arms of your old handlers if that’s what you want.” 

The tensing of her shoulders is almost immediate and she knows Clint feels it because he’s had a gentle hand on her shoulder since Fury breezed into the room. 

“Is that what you want?” 

“No, sir.” 

“Well, then please feel free to explain to me why I’ve got an agent being treated from an assault and a gunshot wound.” 

Clint’s light grip on her shoulder squeezes, as though he knows what she wants to say, and as though he knows that it is very much _not the right thing _to say. 

“I’ve been dealing with Kensley’s hostility since the day I got here, sir. Even I don’t have unending patience.” 

“And you didn’t think to mention this until now?” His voice is filled with about a hundred notes of incredulity. 

“Fourteen years of training to only take help from yourself makes the habit hard to break!” she snaps, and immediately goes on because now she's in the flow of her frustrations, “Don’t stand there and reprimand me for _your_ agent’s actions. Were you serious about recruiting me to SHIELD or am I just here as a circus animal for everyone to gawk at? Because so far I haven’t had the chance to do anything worthwhile and I’m sick of coming up with the same speech worded a different way for different people! Clint’s already heard it! Start training me for the field or _fucking _assassinate me like you planned to because I am finished waiting for you to pull your heads out of your asses.” 

She meets the director’s glare with one of equal measure. Behind her, she can feel that Clint and Coulson are tense, and their staring contest lasts long enough that Barton finally has to say something after a minute. She can tell he’s never been much of a mediator, but he does his best and she’s grateful for it. 

“If I may… I think we’ve all been a little unfair to Natasha. She hasn’t done anything against your protocol for her since she’s gotten here. Her skills are remarkable and we’re sitting on them.”

Fury keeps his gaze with her for a moment longer, makes a point of narrowing his eyes, then leans back and looks up at Clint. 

“What do you propose exactly, Agent Barton?” he challenges him, and this time when Clint speaks, she can tell that he’s thought it through. 

“Let her in on our fitness and combat classes instead of only letting her spar with me or a punching bag. Reduce her restrictions on leaving the Triskelion. Start treating her like she’s something other than a ticking time bomb. You’d be surprised how many of the junior agents take their cues from you. She’s not a threat, sir. She can be an incredible agent for you. Stop putting the plug on it. Send us out together on the next mission that comes in for me.” 

Natasha feels a warmth in her chest that she hasn’t felt since… 

Well. 

In any case she’s grateful for the faith he seems to have. 

“I am _not_ signing off on sending her into the field until she can prove to me it won’t be a mistake.” 

Clint’s hand tightens on her shoulder as though he’s prepared to argue, but Natasha reaches up and squeezes the hand with her own. He sighs and offers her a brief look before acquiescing. He breathes in and looks at the director. 

“Fine. And everything else?” 

Fury looks at Natasha, and she really hates that it surprises her that she’s as much a part of this conversation as anyone else. She has to keep reminding herself that this isn’t the Red Room. This isn’t Russia. No one is forcing her into complicity with thinly veiled threats. They’re collaborating with her. The concept is foreign, though she wishes it wasn’t. Wishes she could take it as it is instead of letting her disbelief run rampant in her mind. 

“You’re going to attend classes when Agent Barton does. Six weeks. You prove to me that you’re worth risking my ass to send you into the field and you two’ve got yourselves a deal,” he says, though she can see the apprehension concealed beneath his hard mask, knows he doesn’t trust her, at least not yet. 

She can’t blame him, she knows that, but it’s still makes the red of her past burn brighter. 

Natasha offers a curt nod, though Clint doesn’t seem completely satisfied, proven when he smacks his tongue off the roof of his mouth. 

“Leaving the building?” 

“When you’re present. Within twenty miles at all times.” 

Clint’s about to push it, but Natasha stops him with a pinch between the fingers on the hand still on her shoulder. 

“Thank you, sir,” she offers, and notes with amusement the relief that flashes in his eye when she stops Clint from arguing, hard ass that he is. 

Fury watches her again for a moment before speaking. 

“I don’t want you to think we’re underestimating your abilities, Romanoff. On the contrary, half the shit you’re skilled in could make any one of our agents lose their lunch. I hope you understand that.” 

Natasha is surprised honestly. There’s an apology that she hadn’t expected in his words, whether he says it outright or wants to admit to it doesn’t really matter to her. It’s more of an apology than she’s ever gotten from anyone besides Clint and that seems to be a step in the right direction. Her lips quirk up in a smirk. 

“Crystal clear, Director,” she says, then humbles, “Thank you. I understand that you’re taking a chance on me, and I know that my word doesn’t mean a lot to you right now, but..."

Natasha takes a deep breath and meets his eyes with determination.

"It will.”

“I’m looking forward to it, agent."

There's a look in his eyes that she can't quite place, but it's not bad. It's almost a smirk, maybe a little bit of a challenge that he hopes she'll win.

"Now get the hell out of my office. I have to fix the mess that goddamn Kensley made,” he throws down his phone on the desk. 

Natasha grins as she stands and directs it at Clint who rolls his eyes and shakes his head. Last thing he needs is her getting smart about Kensley. 

_Oh well_ she thinks, and maybe staying is the right choice. She’s always been stronger than the bullshit, and as a general rule of thumb, she doesn’t need a reminder of that. Natasha has always been good at taking one step back and three steps forward, and SHIELD be damned if she lets anything or anyone change that.

* * *

It’s a day later that Clint comes into their shared apartment and interrupts her reading in the living room. It’s four thirty in the afternoon and he seems more geared up than he should be after a full day of meetings. 

“Get ready to go.” 

She looks up at him with a lifted brow, but she’s already rising from her spot on the couch. A trip out of this building has been a long time coming and she can feel the anticipation of not feeling so closed off building deep in her muscles. 

“Pardon?” 

“We’re going out. Dinner and a show. Any objections?” 

She grins wide at him and is halfway to her bedroom by the time she responds to him with a haphazardly thrown “None at all!” and he’s returning her grin as he does the same. 

* * *

By the time a quarter past five hits, they’re walking down the street together towards the Banana Café, and Clint is watching her as she looks around, observing the neighborhood they’ve come to. She can see the busy freeway that’s three big city blocks away, and the red brick of the sidewalk they’re on isn’t quite even. 

“Hope you like margaritas,” he offers a grin. 

She looks over at him and shakes her head, “I’ve never had one.” 

He raises his brow, “Really?” 

Natasha offers a pointed stare, at which he smirks. 

“Yeah, okay. Stupid question I guess.” 

“I’m not even old enough to legally drink in America until November.” 

His snort leaves her grinning. 

“Like that’s stopped you from breaking into my wine stash.” 

“Those bottles were collecting dust in the kitchen cupboard, so I don’t want to hear it. A glass of wine a day keeps the doctor away.” 

“That’s not how that one goes.” 

She only offers that grin of hers again as they cross the street and come up on the Latin American piano bar. 

Dinner is delightful, and he sneaks her a sip of his margarita because he can’t convince the waiter that she’s from Russia and forgot her passport at the hotel. She discovers that she doesn’t like plantains, but that she is however a big fan of chicken enchiladas, or rather, whatever sauce they’re covered in that she’s never had before and can’t get enough of. 

It’s nice, and it gives her a chance to get to know things about him that she hadn’t known before. Some things he doesn’t want to talk about. When she asks about his childhood he shrugs it off a bit and says something about Iowa and makes a joke about cornfields for days, but she can tell there’s more to it than that. Natasha isn’t new at reading people, and her intuition tells her that he doesn’t want to talk about it further than that. 

She doesn’t make him. She’s the same way really, so what kind of hypocrite would she be? All he knows about the Red Room is what SHIELD has found out about the Red Room. She hasn’t given him anything yet. Still, the night so far is more normalcy than she’s ever experienced in her life, and that’s enough to make it better than any night before it. 

He hails a cab when they leave the restaurant, and when she asks where they’re going next, he shakes his head and smiles. 

“You’ll see.” 

The cab drops them at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and her fingers start tingling when she sees signage for the Mariinksy Ballet. Quicker than she wants to admit, she’s brought back to the years she spent dancing, and her feet itch to carry her across the ground despite the trigger switch it flips in her.

_“Fall out of that turn again, Natalia! I will take the switch to your feet and make you do it again, do you hear? Ty bespolezen! Worthless little girl!”_

Natasha can’t explain even a little bit why it was her only saving grace, especially when now all it inspires are memories she wants to keep under lock and key. 

She doesn’t notice the wetness in her eyes until Clint returns from picking up their tickets at will call, and she puts them away. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything, perhaps because he knows she doesn’t want him to. 

The ballet is beautiful, the dancers lovely, but more than once over the course of the night she has to remind herself to loosen up or risk losing consciousness. She wonders, briefly, how different her life would have been had the academy _actually_ been a school of ballet like they’d tricked them into at the beginning. She could be dancing with the Bolshoi instead of dancing with morality. 

Clint knows something is wrong, but he also has enough sense to know that she would hate him for asking her about it in public. He holds off until they reach their shared apartment on the fiftieth floor of the Triskelion, which proves to be the lengthiest elevator ride of his life. She hasn’t said anything yet and he hasn’t tried to make her. 

Natasha offers him a little smile, one lit with genuine thanks despite the exhaustion he can see behind it. 

“Thank you for tonight, Clint. Really. It was nice to finally get out of here for a little while,” she says, but she doesn’t stick around after. She says she’s tired and retreats to her room, leaving Clint standing there. 

He gives her a minute, goes to his room and puts on sweats and a t-shirt to sleep in, before he goes to her door and knocks; because damn it he told her to stop wallowing, and while he’s not under any delusions that she owes him anything, he’s still been going far enough to think of her as a friend. Checking on her is the least he can do, even if it _is_ a little selfish that he wants to quell his own worry in the process. 

He doesn’t get an answer, which isn’t unusual, but a long, muffled sob makes him go against his better judgement and open the door, slow and deliberate. 

It surprises him to see her heaving with sobs around her pillow. 

Up until now, Clint has never seen her falter. She has a remarkable talent in making things seem like they’re okay, like nothing is wrong, one that he’s seen her use on multiple occasions, save for perhaps when Kensley had to push too hard and really insult her. Natasha has been more or less infallible since the very first time he met her, if not a little hot tempered. If something was going on inside her head, she didn’t let anyone see it. 

Her head whips up in humiliation when he opens the door.

“Get out,” she growls, and there’s a twinge of desperation in her voice that she tries to mask as she sits up and turns her head away to wipe her face. 

“Tash…” 

“Get out!” 

It only takes a moment for him to concede and back up with a quiet sigh, pulling the door shut. 

She doesn’t need him to take care of her and he knows that. 

* * *

When morning rolls around, he wakes up to the sound of the blender going, and wanders out just as its operator seems happy with the consistency of her drink. He slides onto a stool at the island, and isn’t surprised at two observations he makes. One: when she turns around and seems to already know he’d come out, and two: that her mask is back up like it had never wavered to begin with, like last night had never happened. 

“Green juice?” 

He wrinkles up his nose, and shakes his head. 

“Ew.” 

If there was one thing Clint couldn’t and didn’t want to get behind it was blended kale. Natasha smirks at him and takes a big drink of the stuff, _just _to make him shudder he thinks. 

“I don’t get it.” 

“It’s for the macros.” 

“Sure.” 

He can see her shoulders shaking with gentle laughter, and it really strikes him how efficiently she can compartmentalize. It’s a good skill to have in this business, but even he wouldn’t have been able to discern something was wrong if he hadn’t known it already. 

“Do you want to talk about last night?” 

There he sees the flash in her eyes, the one where it seems like she’s remembering for the first time that she’d been upset. 

“Not really.” 

She hides her lower face with the jar as she drinks again. Her mind feels a little like mush, even after her early morning run, and truthfully she thinks she might just have to hit something to clear it up. If she had her choice, she’d spend an hour shooting at paper targets in the gun range downstairs, but as it is, they haven’t offered her that privilege yet. 

“Will you?” 

She looks at him a moment, before looking back into the drink. The care she sees in his eyes is overwhelming to her, and she swallows around the lump that grows in her throat as she thinks back to the day he’d returned from his mysterious leave to tell her that it was okay if she ever needed to talk about her past.

_I won’t pressure it out of you but I will always listen. If you want me to._

And then it’s so hard to distinguish want from need. She doesn’t _want _to talk about it. But here is Clint, seeming to know that she _needs _it but is trying so hard to convince herself otherwise. Needs to come to terms with her past. Needs it to stop haunting so much of her life now that she’s not in Russia anymore. Need, need, need. She shouldn’t _need _anything. 

Natasha takes a deep breath and suddenly feels the urge to sit down. She jumps onto the counter with the same grace that always astonishes Clint, and cups her glass in her hands as she stares down into it again. 

“It really wasn’t anything you did, Clint. I had a great time last night.” 

“Natasha, don’t do that. Don’t keep deflecting.” 

Her jaw tightens and for a moment she’s bothered that he’s learned how to read her so well. She forces herself to let it go. 

He waits as she forms the words in her head, and it’s almost infuriating that he’s got unending levels of patience because she knows for a fact that he’ll sit here and watch her all day. It takes her at least five minutes to find her thoughts, and he’s still there when she does, and if he’s disturbed by her storytelling, he doesn’t let it show. 

“There’s a little girl, okay?” and she’s pausing, hoping he’ll back out of wanting to hear what she’s convincing herself to say. 

“Okay. What about her?” 

She isn’t really expecting him to play along with her trauma-induced vulnerability of not wanting to refer to herself in this story, but he does, and without pity too, which takes a significant ounce or so of pressure off of her chest, but effectively brings it back full circle and harder when she’s forced to realize that he actually cares. 

Her breath is hard to take in, but she tries anyway. 

“She turned four, the day they took her to the Red Room, and she doesn’t remember a lot of what happened to get her there, but it was all a trick in the end, and she… I don’t know. Maybe she was pretty stupid, because nowadays she tries to tell herself that it was easy to believe them at first. She watched her mother bleed out in front of her and they promised her a place to live and dance in the same day. She should have known, right, how did she not?” 

She risks glancing up at him after a moment of silence, and Clint is still listening intently, though with a troubled furrow in his brow, because she asks that question as though she thinks that somehow, at four years old, she should have done anything differently. And she has guilt lighting up her eyes and it hurts his stomach to think about the fact that they conditioned those girls to blame themselves for _everything_. 

She keeps talking because she doesn’t think she’ll be able to continue after she’s stopped. 

“They kept the ballet after the real training began. For agility and discipline. Made them turn until their toenails cracked and their arms felt like jelly and tortured them if they slipped up. But somehow she could never stop loving it.” 

The air is stifling to her, suffocating her and all of her vulnerabilities at the same time. 

“What happened to her?” 

She looks up at him and shrugs, shakes her head, more to try to clear all of the memories away that are threatening to surface. 

“She graduated. Hasn’t danced since.” 

“There weren’t studios in Russia you could go to after graduating?” 

She flinches, because suddenly it’s her again and it’s not the four year old girl that she can pretend is an entirely different person. She slides off the counter and turns to distract herself with cleaning the blender. 

“The KGB owned me after I graduated, Clint. I did what they wanted, when they wanted it. It didn’t leave me with a lot of free time.” 

She hears his sigh from behind her and looks over her shoulder at him. 

“Please don’t pity me.” 

Clint is quick to hold up his hands in defense as he slides off the stool and moves to lean against the counter next to her, “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to, I just… don’t know, Tash…” 

He seems to think hard over what he says next. 

“I’m just glad you came back with me.” 

Natasha turns the water off and pauses for a moment, letting silence hang in the air as she grips the handle. 

Of the things Clint is expecting her to do, turning to him, and pressing her face into his neck and wrapping her arms around his torso, isn’t among them. However when she does, he’s quick to return the embrace. 

He holds her like that for what feels like minutes, and finds that he’s not too keen to let her go when she starts to squirm. She extracts herself from his arms though and turns back to the sink. 

“I’m glad too.” 

She gives him a little sideways grin and he smiles at her, and the silence is comfortable for a minute before she speaks again. 

“You know… It doesn’t just go one way, Barton,” he watches her bite her lip, a sign of nerves he hadn’t noticed in her before. 

He tilts his head and hums.

“I just mean I’m extending the same offer to you. If you ever need to talk, pity yourself, whatever else… I’m here too. No judgement,” she says with a promise in her voice as she meets his gaze. 

Clint is a little surprised, but it turns to a soft smile as he reaches out to take her hand in his own, squeezing lightly. 

“I’ll keep it in mind. Thank you.” 

“Anytime, _ptichka_.” 

“Listen here, I know enough Russian that you can’t call me names in secret, you asshole.” 

Her smirk lights up her face though, and he can’t bring himself to not smile with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ptichka is essentially 'birdy boy'.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! As always let me know what you think and what you'd like to see in the future!


	4. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! 
> 
> I'm so sorry I disappeared for two months!
> 
> I'm in my last year of university and this semester has been kicking my ass in the biggest way. I have had no time to write amidst the gagillion scripts I've been memorizing. I'd had this chapter written before the last one I posted, but I was waiting to finish the following one so I had a bit of cushioning. However, since I'm only a few days from Thanksgiving break and I will finally have the time to write, I figured I'd reassure you all that I'm still here and still just as in love with Clintasha as I was two months ago!
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

The mission sounds a lot easier than it could be.

Natasha thinks following briefing that there’s definitely a reason for that, although it doesn’t make a ton of sense to her. Sure, they’ve been studying her ability to problem solve efficiently over the past six weeks, but that should be even more reason to give her something challenging. They know she’s more than capable. They’ve told her on more than one occasion too, despite her unconcealed distaste for unwarranted commentary. She isn’t a puppy. She doesn’t need positive reinforcement, and if she has to reiterate it one time then maybe, just maybe, they’ll take her request to heart in the aftermath of what’s certain to be a decimation by her own hands.

Clint assures her that it’s not speaking against her abilities, which she already knows, and that it’s just to assess how she works with a partner, which she also knows, but she can’t help but be a little bothered by just how little faith they hold in her still.

Maybe this’ll change it though.

It’s a recon mission, simple in and out really. She’s done these a number of times before and if everything went to plan, she’d be walking straight down the wedding aisle to a higher clearance level, which isn’t much, but it’s a foot in the door to proving herself to SHIELD and becoming more than the monster that the Red Room created.

The _if _about everything going to plan is really the key there though, and it taunts them wildly when they’re in the field, standing in the middle of an art gallery while this gala is in full swing, and watching as the unexpected subject of SHEILD’s investigation walks through the front doors. She and Clint are sipping leisurely on crystal flutes of spumante.

The hem of her deep blue gown whispers against the floor as she leans to murmur into his ear.

“Try to look a little less surprised, Barton, I didn’t come out to blow my cover.”

He clears his throat and smiles, bends his head closer to her. To any of the other guests, they look like a young couple, ready to get out of here or at the very least find a storage closest.

“There’s a reason why I tend to stick to rooftops,” he speaks through his teeth, his annoyance at the turn this night has taken shining through brilliantly.

“Well, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that Fury didn’t expect this guy to show up tonight, so you’re gonna have to improvise, _ptichka_.”

“_Stop calling me that_.”

Natasha only smirks and leans in to press a kiss against his jaw, which she watches twitch, and _that’s _interesting but not something she has the time to evaluate right now. Especially now that Mr. Richardson has caught sight of her and is looking at her like he’s ready to devour her whole.

She whispers in Clint’s ear again, “New plan, put your hand on my ass and turn us a little so he can see it,” which he does, but not without questioning her simultaneously.

“What are you doing, Natasha?”

“Richardson is here. What do you think I’m doing? Throwing a stone at two birds.”

Clint snorts, actually snorts in her ear which makes her gag and elbow him in ribs.

“You were so close to getting that right.”

“Can you _focus_!” she hisses, “We can talk semantics later, when we’re not twenty feet from the head of the trafficking ring we’re trying to take down.”

He’s sniggering still, and it honestly could be worse, because the cover she’s reformulating for him in her head relies on him being a total asshole and he’s not far off from it at the moment. She rolls her eyes and leans her body into his.

“Clint, all you have to do is be a possessive dick wob-“

“_Dick wob?_”

“I will literally disembowel you.”

Her patience is wearing thin and she almost wonders if they planned this, briefed her incorrectly just to see how far she could be pushed, and if Clint is actually in on that, she’s going to put hair dye in his shampoo bottle.

“Fine! Got it.”

“Thankfully it’s not too much of a stretch.”

“_Hey_.”

She smirks up at him, lifting her hand to touch his chest, “When we’re done with this conversation, go to the bathroom, let Phil know what our plan is. I’m sure he already knows Richardson is here by now.”

“_What is our plan_?”

“Maybe if you would _listen _and stop interrupting me! We already know he keeps his thumb drive on him at all times. We recon the art gallery front _and _get those files, we’ve just saved ourselves a whole other mission, and all because someone’s intel about his attendance at this little fête was wrong. Convenient twist.”

“And while I’m in the bathroom?” he raises his brow, but he’s acting along with her now, fingers digging into her back, and hell if that doesn’t do something for her that she’s not expecting…

_Table it for another time, Natasha_.

“I know just by looking at him that he’s already thinking about how much money he’d make off of me. He’ll come over when you leave and I’m going to let him sweet talk me enough to get close and lift that drive off of him. You’re going to tell Coulson to let you know when I scratch the back of my neck, and then you get to come be an asshole and escort me out to teach me a lesson about flirting with men that aren’t you.”

He scowls at the jesting pout on her face and huffs, “Yeah, got it. You know I don’t really like this plan?”

She’s about to respond, but then there’s a crackle in their ears and Coulson’s voice is filtering in.

“_I’m going to assume that you two aren’t discussing the latest edition of Cosmo in there, because that would be highly unprofessional and would give me grounds for discipline. I’m also going to assume that you’ve both seen Richardson, in which case, you’ve got about three minutes to find a secure location away from him to tell me what you’ve been conspiring about, otherwise we’re calling it.”_

Natasha smirks and runs her nose along the edge of his jaw, “That’s your cue, dear.”

He gives her a look and pulls away, with a huff, to go to the bathroom.

This’ll be easy. Richardson is already watching as Clint leaves the main room, and he’s coming over mere moments later to examine the same piece of art she’s admiring so intently. He sidles up to her in a manner that he appears to think is unassuming, but Natasha has never let a man fool her, excepting the collateral of her Red Room days, and she doesn’t plan on starting to now.

“You know the artist, dear?” he asks, and she starts, looking up with anxious eyes.

When she speaks, it’s with a thick Hungarian accent.

“I’m sorry, I don’t… It is only pretty. I…” she searches for a word, “_Admire_ it.”

His eyes light up with a pleasure that she almost throws up in her mouth at, because he’s a man that preys on girls who barely speak English and can barely understand it either. It’s almost hard for her to restrain herself from unraveling the garotte in her necklace right on the spot. Almost. Not that he doesn’t deserve a nice strangling, but it really wouldn’t help the situation at hand.

“It’s certainly not the only admirable thing in the room,” is really the line he goes for, and the flush on her cheeks is from the embarrassment she feels for him.

Good though that he interprets it as a shy blush.

“What is your name, miss?”

“Nikolett,” she smiles.

He reaches to take her hand and she gives it to him.

“Beautiful, Nikolett. Come with me. Let me get you a drink.”

He’s working quick, knows that the man she’d come with is going to come back soon from the phone call he’d answered on his way to the bathroom.

She can work quick too.

She fakes a little stumble as he guides her along, because when she trips into him eventually, to get the flash out of his jacket’s inside pocket, he’ll think it’s because she’s clumsy. Ideally, anyhow, but nothing ever really tends to work out as planned.

He leads her to the bar and takes her half empty glass out of her hand, snaps at the bartender, who must work in the ring too if the telling smirk he gives Richardson is anything to go off of. The fresh glass of spumante he hands her is almost definitely drugged.

Natasha reaches up behind her to scratch the back of her neck, and a moment later she’s tripping herself on the base of the barstool. It sends her falling into him, spilling the drink down his front and grabbing hold of him to keep herself up.

What she _should've_ accounted for is how short his temper is.

Damn it.

Hindsight really is twenty-twenty.

Suddenly he’s shoving her to the floor in front of a whole crowd of people, and in a flurry of action, there are arms tugging her up and glass shattering and Clint is stepping around her to send his fist flying into the asshole’s face.

It’s one of those moments that are really only supposed to exist in movies, but hey, at least she’d still managed to sneak the thumb drive out of his pocket.

When Clint whirls back around and takes her by the upper arm, it’s in complete silence as he pulls her out of the building and leaves everyone else standing there in shock.

His grip on her arm isn’t loose and it remains that way even after they’re halfway to the car, and that’s how she knows that something is wrong. That and the absolutely seething expression he’s wearing and how he won’t say a goddamn thing.

And when she says, “You know, at least we got the flash drive,” he has the nerve to respond with, “don’t say a fucking word, Natasha.”

Call it a sixth sense, but for every one instinct yelling at her to not take shit from any man, there are two telling her that something isn’t right with the one man she’s come to know as her friend, so she doesn’t say anything. Yet.

When he opens the front passenger door for her, she slips in. He closes it a little too hard before getting in the back. Coulson, who’s sitting behind the wheel, looks at her and raises a brow.

Natasha shakes her head.

For once, he seems to be okay with that, and he puts the car in drive and goes.

* * *

They debrief separately, upon Clint’s request, and Fury leaves her thoroughly chastised and walking back to the apartment with her tail between her legs and with zero levels of clearance.

_Really fucked that one up good, didn’t you, Natasha?_

The feeling of failure coursing through her veins is a sharp thrumming of anxiety at what the consequences to come were going to be, and somehow the idea of facing Clint’s disappointment is worse than any sort of torture the Red Room could have put her through.

On her walk back she has the opportunity to pinpoint everything she’d done wrong, because never – _never _– has she imagined failing this hard and not seeing it at all until after the fact.

She doesn’t know how she _hadn’t_ realized it. Truthfully, it’s embarrassing, that she took the situation and ran with it like she would have back in Russia, back when it was just her she had to worry about. She feels even stupider that she’d _known _they’d be looking for this in her performance, and her mind had still gone to that place of full control, only this time, she wasn’t alone, and her plan had involved a whole lot of weird collateral damage that SHIELD was having to pay for. Namely, the ambulance that had been called by someone in the heat of the moment and arrived on site with no one to treat. That’d be four hundred dollars out of her next paycheck. 

And all of that pales in comparison to the splitting heartache she feels when she sees the disappointment on Clint’s face upon walking into the apartment.

He’s sitting on the chair in the corner of the living room, head dropped into his hands, and when she closes the door and takes a step in, he looks up at her. Her wince is barely detectable, but it’s there.

“Clint…”

He cuts her off, standing up and walking over to the kitchen.

“Please, just… Sit down.”

Natasha does, stepping in front of the couch and lowering herself to the middle seat. She waits for him, patiently, because all she wants right now is for him to let her know if and how she can make it up to him.

When he comes back over, it’s with an ice pack that he offers to her before sitting down next to her.

“I owe you an explanation.”

That surprises her.

Natasha blinks as she accepts the ice pack and shakes her head.

“Clint, you don’t owe me anything.”

“Natasha.”

She stares at him and purses her lips before relenting and lifting the ice pack to her bruised elbow.

It’s almost like she can hear him thinking as he goes over whatever he has to say in his head, and she’s worried now that he’s forcing himself to do something he doesn’t want to just for her sake.

“Hey…”

She reaches out to touch his knee and he lets her, but he doesn’t look at her when he starts speaking.

“I don’t ever want that to be our cover again, okay? I won’t play the abusive husband, Tash, it’s not- It’s the one thing-… Don’t ask me to do it again.”

Her brow is furrowed in concern and the shake of her head is immediate because she can tell how not okay he is.

“I won’t. I’m sorry.”

Then, a moment later after he doesn't continue:

“Are you okay? This isn’t just coming from nowhere, Clint.”

“I know. And that’s why I said I owe you an explanation. If we’re going to be partners you deserve it.”

Her grasp moves from his knee to his hand, which he turns over and squeezes in return.

“You know I grew up in Iowa with my brother, ran with the circus ‘bout a month after I started high school. Think it woulda broke my mom’s heart if she’d still been alive, but…”

His head shakes briefly and he squeezes her hand again.

“Did you love your mom?” she asks after a moment of silence, because she feels like she knows where this is going, and the last thing she wants is for it to get there. To force him to relive it.

She’s not a stranger to reliving horrors.

He huffs out through his nose and smiles.

“More than anything.”

She pauses to brush her thumb over his hand.

“What happened?”

“Our pop. Drunk bastard hit her all the time and it only takes one time to go too far. Took her within an inch of her life one night before he realized what he was doing. Lost his fucking mind, started ranting about the hospital and threw her in the car to take her. Drove them both into a truck on the way.”

Natasha’s eyes are sad, but she doesn’t seem surprised. Nothing surprises her anymore. She understands now, with perfect lucidity, how she’d steered their mission wrong.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, hand clutching his tighter, then clarifies, “Sorry for earlier.”

He offers a dim smile and shakes his head, “You couldn’t have known. I don’t blame you for anything, Tash. But I thought you deserved to know why.”

“Well, thank you for telling me. But I’m still sorry.”

“You’re stubborn, you know that?” he looks at her, then back out in front of him.

She offers a smirk and nudges his shoulder with her own.

“You win some you lose some.”

He smiles, and this time it almost reaches his eyes before falling again as he stares out the window.

“It’s hard not to worry that I’ll turn into him.”

He looks almost painfully distressed for something that’s such a big ‘if’, and Natasha wonders why briefly, because her ability to read people is telling her that there’s a little something more to the whole thing. She’s bothered that she doesn’t know what it is, but she reaches her hand up to his cheek and makes him look at her.

“Hey. Listen to me. You are not that, Clint. You never will be.”

His eyes are caught in hers and she smiles at him, tender in a way he hasn’t seen her before. He grasps her hand on his cheek.

It isn’t until her eyes dart to his lips that the air in the room changes, whether she meant it to or not. Clint feels himself gravitate an inch closer to her, even as his head screams at him to stop. Not that it matters. Natasha is so perceptive he sometimes wonders if she can read minds. Her hand falls away and they sit in silence for a few moments before he has to go and ruin it.

“So, how long did Fury chew you out for?”

As she groans and falls back, he laughs at her.

“You’re the worst.”

“I try.”

“I’m taking a shower.”

He’s still laughing at her as she stands up, shaking her head despite the grin that’s sprouted on her face.

As she turns, he catches her hand, and when she turns back, his face is soft.

“I meant it, Tash. Thank you.”

Natasha’s face sobers to a pleasant smile as she nods

“I meant it too. Always.”

Clint lets her go after a second, but gazes after her as she retreats to the bathroom, heaves a sigh and runs his hands through his hair, the hands that can still feel her touch on them. He thinks briefly that he’s being an idiot, then pulls his phone out, because he knows someone who absolutely would disagree.

He dials, gets an answer after three rings, and his face lights up at her voice.

“_Hello?_”

“Hi, mama. Miss me?”

“_Depends on how much you miss me, Hawkeye_.”

He can hear the little smirk in her voice and it makes him miss her more.

“Beyond words, Laur.”

“_End of November can’t come fast enough_.”

“Yeah. About that…”

“_Clinton, if you called to tell me you’re not coming home for the holidays, I’m gonna hang up.”_

“No! No, no, not that. Plan is still the twentieth. I just had a question.”

Her sigh of relief makes his heart swell.

“_Ask away._”

“Mind if I bring a friend?”

There’s a pause, not for confusion, but he can hear a frustrated squeal on her end, and then her laughter.

“_Let it be known for the record that there is no doubt that this kid is your son._”

He grins, “Do I want to know?”

“_I’ll let you find out over the holiday. Who is it?_”

“Goody. Do you remember the agent I was telling you about last time I was home?”

“_The one you were supposed to assassinate?_”

“Ha… Yeah. I think… She wouldn’t admit it, but she’s lonely here and I don’t know if she’s ever had a Christmas to be honest. These agents are the biggest babies, Laura, it’s ridiculous. I just don’t want the holidays to be the same for her as they were last year.”

“_You don’t have to remind me about SHIELD agents being babies, honey. I spent five years designing and fitting tactical suits. I know._”

He smirks.

“_I’d love to have her. She’ll be nice company. Think she’s a good babysitter?”_

Clint can hear the grin in her voice again like before and he laughs.

“Probably not her scene.”

“_Damn_.”

His smile is affectionate as he savors the sound of her voice over the phone, and he takes in a deep breath to release in a sigh.

“God I can’t wait to see you, baby.”

“_Two weeks. You can make it,_” she says, and Clint knows that he _can_, it’s just that he doesn’t want to. Instant gratification and all that.

The extended periods of time he spends away from his wife and now child are wearing on him, and he thinks that maybe Natasha is the only thing keeping him sane.

“_Clint? Honey?”_

“Yeah, I’m here. I’ll let you know what Natasha says soon, okay? I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” he offers.

“_Okay_,” is all she says, but it’s with a lilt that tells him she knows something is up, and eventually he won’t be able to avoid it anymore. She’ll force it out of him and then what? The worst part is that he knows she’ll understand, and while he feels the need to be held accountable, she’ll disagree. Tell him something like “It’s normal”.

And while there’s a lot that’s happened on the job that Clint feels he can justify, developing feelings for the Russian he was supposed to assassinate whilst still being deeply in love with his wife is not one of them.


End file.
